Note: Make sure that you have the Lucida Sans Unicode font installed in your computer so that the IPA symbols will display correctly.

     Up till now, most of you in Taiwan having been using the Kenyon & Knott (K.K.) phonetic symbols to show how to pronounce an English word. This is mostly an advantage, since this system is based on and very close to the IPA International Phonetic Association/Alphabet 國際音標 system.

      You will, however, need to pay special attention to the IPA symbols for sounds that are transcribed differently than in K.K. The most important differences are:

     (1) the K.K. [o] is written [oʊ] in IPA; this clearly shows that the sound is a diphthong, i.e. composed of two vowels and not just one;

     (2) similarly, the K.K. [e] is written [eɪ] in IPA; this is a diphthong that Taiwan speakers of English are notorious for pronouncing wrong, often as a monophthong, either a short [æ] or [ɛ];

     (3) the K.K. [r] is written [ɹ] in IPA;

     (4) the American tap, as in the sound written with 't' in 'water' is written with a 'fishhook' symbol [ɾ], and not [t].

     We will learn about other differences as we go along. Note that we will be learning one style of IPA transcription; the symbols chosen can and do in fact vary from language to language and textbook to textbook.


Next: IPA fonts, Ethnologue, and more

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